Forum / Discussions à propos du jeu / Ancient Boundaries: New Study Maps Political and Economic Border

Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology have uncovered the political and economic borders that separated the El Argar society—considered the first state-level civilization on the Iberian Peninsula—from its neighboring Bronze Age cultures in La Mancha and Valencia around 4,000 years ago. The findings, published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, reveal that while these neighboring communities had less centralized structures, they maintained intricate relationships with El Argar, forming a complex regional landscape of cooperation, negotiation, and inequality.

The study focuses on the production and circulation of pottery in what is now northern Murcia, a frontier zone between El Argar and its La Mancha and Valencian neighbors between 2200 and 1550 BCE. This region served as a contact zone where archaeologists could trace the dynamics of interaction, exchange, and boundary formation between societies with differing degrees of political complexity.

“This is one of the first archaeological studies to directly explore how political borders were formed and maintained in prehistoric Europe,” says Roberto Risch, a professor in the UAB Department of Prehistory and lead coordinator of the research. “Understanding early state formation requires us to pay attention to the creation of boundaries, yet this aspect has often been overlooked in archaeology.”

By analyzing ceramic fragments, including petrographic analysis and spatial modeling using GIS, the researchers identified sharp distinctions in pottery production between the Argaric core and surrounding regions. In the southern settlements of the Segura river basin, they found a predominance of standardized Argaric ceramics, made from clay sourced over 100 kilometers away in the coastal mountains of Murcia and Almeria. This indicates the existence of an organized distribution system likely controlled by settlements in the El Argar heartland.

In contrast, pottery in the northern areas showed signs of highly localized production using nearby clay, revealing a more domestic, small-scale approach. These differences in material culture reflect fundamentally different economic systems and suggest the presence of a core-periphery dynamic.

“These frontier areas were not just cultural boundaries but active zones of economic exchange and negotiation,” explains Adrià Moreno Gil, lead author of the study and researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. “The presence of Argaric pottery so far from its production center suggests deliberate distribution, reinforcing the dominance of El Argar over its neighbors—even in the circulation of everyday items.”

One of the key outcomes of the study is the identification of El Argar as a highly integrated and politically centralized society. Previous research had recognized the expansive nature of El Argar, which grew from a relatively small area of 5,000 square kilometers to dominate a region spanning roughly 35,000 square kilometers. However, this is the first research to clearly define how its borders were enforced and how power was exerted over neighboring groups.

“These findings support the view that true state structures had already emerged in Western Europe around 1800 BCE,” says Risch. “El Argar was not only a society with access to strategic resources like metal, but also one that maintained economic control over its frontiers through everyday goods such as ceramics.”

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The study introduces a new methodological framework for investigating prehistoric societies by combining extensive fieldwork, ceramic analysis, and advanced spatial modeling. This approach has set a new benchmark for mapping production and distribution networks in ancient contexts.

“Our research demonstrates that pottery analysis is a powerful tool to reconstruct social and economic relationships and to understand how ancient borders were formed,” says Carla Garrido García, a predoctoral researcher at UAB and co-author of the study.

The methodology developed in this research could be applied to other Bronze Age cultures across Europe, such as the Únětice culture in Central Europe or the Minoan civilization in Crete. These societies, like El Argar, developed sophisticated economic and political systems, yet their border dynamics remain underexplored.

The project was supported by funding from the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.